• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

New PC

chataigner

chataigner

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Fed up with waiting for my 6 yr old PC to run complex tasks in Lightroom and Photoshop, I decided on a new one. Trawling the net produced lots of high spec machines, but since they are all aimed at gamers, they have powerful and very expensive graphics cards which dont interest me at all - my pictures dont move.

Cut a long story short, I had one custom made by a local dealer who is well thought of. Lightning fast processor, SSD in place of a hard drive for the programmes, 1TB HDD for the data, another 1TB HDD external for backups and 8GB of fast RAM for now, space for lots more. 3yr parts and labour warranty thrown in. I already had a good quality 23" monitor, so that stays.

Installed it today. Amazing !!! Win 7 (I dont like win8) opens in 3 seconds. A typical office application like MS Word opens so fast you cant measure it.

I've spent all day loading software and copying data across. This is the first post made from the new toy...
:D :D :D
 
Nice, but you mention Lightroom and Phootshop, both graphically intensive so surely you need and top end GPU...?

Not necessarily with Direct X etc but GFX mem and GPU I would have thought.

Cheers
Mark
 
Pretty much all graphics cards in any machine you could buy today would be more than needed for graphics software unless you wanted to try complex real time video effects.

There was a time not so long ago when Photoshop required high end hardware but not any more. I used to upgrade every year and get extreme kit with dual CPUs, fancy graphics cards and raid arrays that cost an arm and a leg just to eke a bit more speed for editing. Now I use a three year old, off the shelf, machine (admittedly, very good three years ago, 16gb ram, quad core with SSDs) and it's still more powerful than I really need.

It's all good though, more money for tools and timber :-)

Mind you, that sounds like a good setup you've got there, it'll certainly be a step up from anything you could have bought six years ago.





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1TB for backups.... I'd have trouble fitting a complete backup on to a 4Tb drive.

Having the OS on SSD makes all the difference for everyday use.

I have Lightroom 5 but never use Photoshop. Lightroom benefits from having 2 SSDs. one for the temporary files it creates and another for the picture files. Working through a large batch of 25MB raw files things are much faster than having data on a conventional drive. Lightroom up to version 5 does not use any of the power of a graphics card. version 6 may be a worthwhile upgrade as it does use the GPU and adjustments appear to be instant from what I've seen.

SSDs are getting pretty cheap so if you use lightroom a lot it might be worth adding another small one.

Anyhow enjoy the new machines speed. I generally can't resist an upgrade after 3 years so may be making changes soon. oh and I do like windows 8 and will be giving windows 10 a go when it launches.
 
Andyp":31y1ldd3 said:
Never thought of having a pc custom made. How does the price compare with an off the shelf model?
Click to expand...

The problem is that off the shelf models dont come with this configuration, they always add expensive graphics cards to high end machines - not needed for my work. So, to sum up, each item a bit more expensive than off the shelf, but paid for by leaving out the graphics card.

Robert - Regarding another SSD for Lightroom, I've configured it to put the Lightroom catalogue on the SSD with the software and not on the HDD with the photos. Seems to work lightning fast and there is bags of room for the catalogue to grow.

Like you, I hardly ever use photoshop, but it does come in handy once in while.
 
TrimTheKing":t9blslb4 said:
Nice, but you mention Lightroom and Phootshop, both graphically intensive so surely you need and top end GPU...?

Not necessarily with Direct X etc but GFX mem and GPU I would have thought.

Cheers
Mark
Click to expand...

Actually no, these programs are processor intensive, but not graphically intensive. The image on the screen is essentially static. It needs to update reasonably quickly in real time to provide visual feedback when editing, but there is no 3d rendering or other heavy duty tasks.
 
I use CS4 - what's the advantage with Lightroom.
Looking it up, it implies it's a management system which you hire from Adobe?

For years I used to make up my own reasonably high specd. PC's but got fed up trying to keep up with all the changes and compatibility requirements.

My current one I bought from a local supplier - Novatech.
I also used to play games but found I was getting too tensed up and started suffering from neck, shoulder and arm pains! And wasting far too much time [emoji3]

Rod
 
I normally prefer to build my own PC from the ground up. That way you can customize to the spec that you need. And assembling a PC is actually n pretty easy job.
 
Rod":29ejtpoc said:
I use CS4 - what's the advantage with Lightroom.
Looking it up, it implies it's a management system which you hire from Adobe?

Rod
Click to expand...

Adobe are trying to push everyone onto subscription payment system now where you pay so much every month rather than just buy software licences outright. You can still buy a licence if you look hard enough. I bought lightroom 5 and may well buy an upgrade to V6 soon.

Lightroom does do cataloguing of your pictures and if you use keywords when adding new pictures can be a very quick way of finding all pictures of 'aunt mabel' or whatever. I don't use it for that though as the way I file things on disk makes it easy to find what i want.

Where lightroom wins for me is the ability to make all the normal edits to pictures very quickly and non destructively. By setting defaults a lot of making pictures how you like them happens just by importing them into lightroom. Final tweaking can be a matter of seconds per picture. Once you compare before and after editing and see the difference you know it is worthwhile. I shoot raw mode pictures with a DSLR. My wife uses a panasonic TZ camera and she uses lightroom on the jpegs because it is easy to make them better.

Photoshop can do the same and can do a lot more but it can't match the speed and ease of getting the pictures done with Lightroom.
 
RogerS":3rib2yha said:
What's a PC ? :eusa-think:
Click to expand...

:text-+1: wish I knew what half those acronyms meant, eg SSD. Need a new PC, but always dread the process. So hate my wife's one with windows8 have vowed never to buy a windows based machine again and therefore to move to apple.

Terry.
 
Wizard9999":8ab7v86g said:
RogerS":8ab7v86g said:
What's a PC ? :eusa-think:
Click to expand...

:text-+1: wish I knew what half those acronyms meant, eg SSD. Need a new PC, but always dread the process. So hate my wife's one with windows8 have vowed never to buy a windows based machine again and therefore to move to apple.

Terry.
Click to expand...

Nearly everyone I speak to hates Win 8, you are not alone !! However, Win 7 is fine...
SSD = Solid State Drive - alternative to a Hard disc that uses all solid state memory and is A LOT faster (also no moving parts).
 
Wizard9999":2pwue5iw said:
.....and therefore to move to apple.

Terry.
Click to expand...

A great plan, Terry. I know of many people who have made the move and have sworn never to go back. I know of no-one who has made the move in the opposite direction and been happy. If you need any help or advice just ask. In case you didn't know you can get some good deals on the Apple Refurb site.

But you will also find that secondhand Macs still hold their value well but nevertheless are a bit cheaper to buy. The only thing you need to watch out for is whether or not the hardware will run the latest operating systems. Having said that my wife's iMac is still happily running Snow Leopard and we have no plans to migrate it to any later version of OS X.
 
I've never had a PC (in the home) so can't really comment. After 27 years with ICL/Fujitsu and with an IT department on tap 24/7 I knew that I would never want to "learn" how to manage a PC so I went straight to the Mac about 10 years ago and still cannot understand why anyone would want to use anything else.
 
Having administered PC (Windows, Linux), Unix Workstations, and Novell based networks for our company across multiple sites for the last 12 years or so, I will never buy a Windows based machine for my own use again. The last Sony Vaio TT with Windows 7 on a 256GB SSD was the last straw. amazin to use and then just crashed a couple of times (windows update related - Long story short hard to turn off what MS view as 'critical' updates, you can do it hacking the registry, I rebuilt the machine and forgot to re-apply the hack. HATE HATE HATE windows)
 
I love my MacBook Pro but when we upgraded our PC I was not allowed to replace it with a Mac as my wife "doesn't like them!!"

I'm running Win 7 but it frequently hangs up etc after the many upgrades. Re booting is second nature.
For the first time, the Mac did something similar recently after a download - I had to go online to find out how to do a reboot - hold shift down with on button! [emoji3]

Rod
 
blimey...I'm going to really fly in the face of popular opinion then.....

I've been PC for ever. This Xmas just gone, a mate of mine came over from the US with his MacBook and we were using logic to compose a song that we had written together 25 years ago that for reasons I wont bore you with needed re-recording. So we did it...and it was great.

So great in fact that I decided to ditch my PC based home studio which was creaking and Cubase based and just "go Mac" for the first time ever. Everyone has always said...it just works or words to that effect.

So I spent about £1100 on a mid-range spec I-Mac.

And its certainly OK. But I find its really restrictive compared to the PC. For example, having SW programmes needing to be filtered through the app store. I accept that there is an upside to doing that ie safety, standards etc but it all just reminds me of the original AOL where you couldn't get access to the actual web...you were forced to stay in their proprietary browser (which sucked).

I must confess I haven't spent a lot of time messing about with it except in Logic so I'm quite the noob and I do like the easy way to upgrade programmes via the appstore interface. I guess I'm quite used to the "frontier" attitude that comes part and parcel with the Wintel world. Its a lot more chaotic. I feel sort of "hemmed in and smothered" in the Mac universe. Not made my mind up finally yet as its too early and I certainly love the design and components compared to PC's. That's a no brainer. Just the ethos of not feeling free.
 
Actually you don't have to get everything through the App store, Rob.

In Mavericks, certainly, you have the option to 'open' up your Mac to other programs not in the Mac store.
 
That's not my experience either Rob. I have a number of applications on the iMac that were purchased directed from the writers/owners.
I think things are different for the Apps used on the iPhone, iPad and iPod though.
 
I was a great mac fan in their early days MAC, Mac plus SE30 up through to LC630 (?) when they just became too bespoke and would not run enough common business software. We moved away at work and then the MS licence terms allowed free home use of sw you had licensed at work so became obvious to move to PC.

I've not been back to macs in their new incarnation simply because I've not bought a new machine in years and my installations are pretty stable and trouble free - winXP. I tend to find rebooting once every couple of months is beneficial, otherwise they stay on 24-7.

I have a number of reserve machines bought for peanuts so I can't imagine changing for a while. The trouble is that if I did I'd have to go the whole hog and get at least 3 machines and I can't imagine networking a mix of PC and Macs to talk to each other and perform backups would be easy.

So I'm happy for you Mc users and maybe I'll join you one day but not just yet.

How easy is it to interface bit of homebrew electronics to macs? not something I do a lot but having a standard serial interface (not USB) is easy to use and a true real time parallel port for CNC is pretty essential too even though thse have been lost from the latest PCs too.

Bob
 
RogerS":19o046ac said:
Actually you don't have to get everything through the App store, Rob.

In Mavericks, certainly, you have the option to 'open' up your Mac to other programs not in the Mac store.
Click to expand...

That's the thing Roger...I think I'm really too green at this stage in the Mac world to judge it fairly. My comments were probably best bracketed as "first impressions".

There is another aspect to this which is that I run a business from home and all my work related front office is on the PC which is a laptop and in fact I operate my business from an armchair with the laptop literally on my lap. That tends to keep me away from the Mac unless it's specialist stuff like the music studio. I think if my laptop (fast win7 machine) exploded tomorrow it would force me to use the Mac for more everyday stuff and I'd learn it faster.

I think because all my Mac buddies over the years have been badgering me to just go Mac and never look back that I had a very high expectation of it. Perhaps I set the bar a little too high? We'll see as I get more into it. I certainly remain open minded and as for the screen technology...love it.
 
Well I'm a PC guy and will probably stay that way, I have done some work on a Macbook, but was pretty underwhelmed by it. I also have an iPad and even though the big screen (compared to my android phone) is great for browsing I don't really use it for anything else. I have used iTunes to try and move stuff to and from the iPad and found it ridiculously restrictive and frankly terrible. So even though it seems I'm in the minority, I am very happy with my windows and android devices. :ugeek: :D
 
I use my Mac almost exclusively but there are still some things that it just cannot compete with a PC for so I still have one.

All data is stored on NAS accessible from both flavours.

In terms of Mac apps from the App Store Rob, that's just the ones you've been looking at, you can install any Mac compatible app on your machine just by downloading the dmg file.

Commander - iTunes is the single worst, most bloated piece of software ever written by anyone, anywhere, ever! I am a confirmed Mac fanboy and even I think it sucks monumental b4lls!!!

There are other ways to move stuff onto iPads but you have to remember that they were designed to be a replacement for a computer so are still very restricted in what you can do with them, or if you can do it then it is often convoluted.

Cheers
Mark
 
PC vs Mac and canon vs nikon topics were often so heated on the photography forum I used to moderate on they were almost no go areas :)

I use PCs and I've never used a Mac. I have had an iphone and an ipad and couldn't get on with the Apple way of doing things. Mostly I think because the devices are made to play ball with other Apple kit. try and run something not by apple and its a pain or just doesn't work.

I run into problems sometimes using the PC or android tablet/phone but so far have always found a solution and it has never involved having to buy the same brand kit.

I'd say there were good and bad things about windows and apple. having used windows (and DOS) from 3.1 and up I'll stay with what i know. Whatever works for you is what you need.
 
Another reason, that I forgot to mention earlier, why I bought an iMac was the computer all in one with the screen concept rather than the big box under the desk. That was 10 years ago now and I have not kept up with what is available PC-wise now but I will not change now.
 
Commander":eh5oo8f4 said:
Well I'm a PC guy and will probably stay that way, I have done some work on a Macbook, but was pretty underwhelmed by it. I also have an iPad and even though the big screen (compared to my android phone) is great for browsing I don't really use it for anything else. I have used iTunes to try and move stuff to and from the iPad and found it ridiculously restrictive and frankly terrible. So even though it seems I'm in the minority, I am very happy with my windows and android devices. :ugeek: :D
Click to expand...

You're not in a minority - sales figures for Mac and Win PC are quite clear about that. I'm a dedicated PC man too. From DOS onwards. The quality issue is a bit warped because Macs are made by Apple, but PCs are made by just about everyone and the quality is, of course, variable. Depends on the maker, like most things. Quality PCs do exist and work very well for years. I have 1998 Dell laptop that was bounced around in luggage and cars for 6 or 7 years, crossed the atlantic at least a dozen times: and it still works fine nearly 20yrs on. It's too slow to be any real use, but I cant bear to dump it !
 
A little icon appeared on my PC screen last night - "upgrade to 10"
I shall leave well alone until I've investigated further - compatibility issues etc??

Rod
 
Rod":68mh7jbr said:
A little icon appeared on my PC screen last night - "upgrade to 10"
I shall leave well alone until I've investigated further - compatibility issues etc??

Rod
Click to expand...

Like you, I shall bide my time. Firstly, nothing in life is truly free - I'm wondering where is the catch. Secondly I'm perfectly happy with the OS I've got - there's nothing more I feel I need, so why take the time and trouble (and possible risk) to install and learn a new one ?
 
I've had it a fortnight now and like you left it well alone. My assumption is Microsoft are in a bit of trouble on this. Here's the business logic:

Windows 7 users really like it and want to stay put ESPECIALLY after Windows 8 was such a pigs ear so they're not going to pay to upgrade unless MS force them by switching off support for 7...which they simply cant given the massive base still using it. Solution...give it to them for nothing.

Windows 8 users generally hate the dam thing as it makes excrement look shiny! So get them off as fast as possible so they don't keep complaining about it and MS start to get positive reviews again about recent releases. Plus Win 8 users feel they're "owed" an operating system by MS...which is perfectly reasonable. Solution, give it to them for free.

Basically they blew it in such spectacular fashion with 8.0 that they're having to go to extraordinary lengths to persuade people forward.

MS won't want to maintain multiple versions of their OS for long as that's expensive and inefficient. When a software company develops a new feature or fixes a bug, they only want to do it once or they're wasting development cycles. Hence....give away 10 to entice customers back onto a homogeneous platform then in a year or so stop supporting all the legacy code.

I think I'll let some bleeding edge nerd from MIT be the guinea pig before I trust them again for a while!
 
Windows 8 was confusing, lots of changes for change's sake. However, 8.1 fixes the worst of them. I use it on all my machines and mostly they just operate as faster versions of how they were on Win7.

A few tweaks to start things in desktop mode and stick to desktop apps, you never have to see the new style except for the start screen.

Windows 10 is supposed to be bringing a more traditional feel to the desktop and integrating the new style apps better with proper windowing etc.

I have two macbook pros excellent hardware, they run windows though. Couldn't grow to like the Mac OS and found that I often couldn't run my favourite apps except in a slow emulator. They do have a Mac boot partition but mostly I boot straight to windows.


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